


just to see if i'd be missed

by neutrophilic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hogwarts Eighth Year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 16:25:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11878326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neutrophilic/pseuds/neutrophilic
Summary: They say you can't go home again. Harry, with Hermione and without Ron, goes back to Hogwarts for his eighth year.





	just to see if i'd be missed

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #11

The summer Harry turned eighteen was unlike any other he could remember. There were no visits to the perfectly normal house on Privet Drive. In fact, there was no communication at all with the Dursleys, with the exception of a hastily scrawled note in Dudley's labored handwriting congratulating Harry on surviving. There was no waiting for letters or news; Harry was kept almost as well informed as the Minister of Magic, and his friends were all close at hand. There was no incessant dread about Voldemort and what he'd do next. There was no Fred. Or Tonks. Or Sirius. 

But there was still one constant: Harry spent the whole summer eagerly waiting to go to Hogwarts. He’d been marking down the days as soon as Professor McGonagall had invited him to an eight year, a year to study properly for his NEWTs.

And almost as soon as Harry arrived, he wondered why he’d bothered to go back.

The train ride had been mostly fine. Lots of staring at the platform, but that was to be expected. Hermione had the sense to push for them to arrive early so they could beat the rush and reserve a compartment with their friends, so it hadn't been as bad as it could have been. It helped that the only Weasleys heading to the station were Ginny, who had grabbed Harry’s hand harder when some wizard in bright puce robes had pointed at them, and Ron, who was seeing them off.

Molly Weasley had fussed and fussed over them in the morning, asking if they all were quite sure that she shouldn’t see them off. But Ginny had put her foot down after Mrs Weasley had started compulsively flattening Ginny’s collar. They’d all piled into the back of the sole Ministry car that could be spared and were off, Mr and Mrs Weasley waving at them all the way down the street.

At the station, Ron and Hermione disappeared onto the train before Harry had made it through the barrier. He wasn’t surprised. Every time the three of them had spent time together this summer, the new couple had always snuck off and would reappear looking innocent, usually with a new hickey on Hermione’s neck—Hermione wasn’t much of a healer—or with Ron’s hair almost as messy as Harry’s. Harry, remembering the debacle with Lavender, was grateful that his two best friends didn’t feel the need to demonstrate exactly how long they could spend attached at the mouth without coming up for breath in front of him. Hermione no doubt had read a book with some clever spell that would allow them to go at it for hours.

Ginny found the whole thing hilarious. "Last time Mum had Hermione around for dinner," she had told Harry, "she asked them to set the table. An hour later, Mum went to find them and found they'd only laid the forks out. Hermione was so flustered that when she waved her wand to finish it, she tied the napkins all in knots. Ron just stood there with his mouth open." Ginny then did her startlingly accurate Ron impression, opening and closing her mouth like a guppy, and then they'd gotten side tracked themselves. 

But before Harry could contemplate for too long what exactly Ron and Hermione were getting up to, a window near the back of the train opened and Ron stuck his head out and beckoned them in. When they'd joined them, Ron's shirt was half-tucked into his trousers, so clearly Hermione had had the chance to say goodbye to him properly.

"I don't think I can stay to see the train leave," Ron said. "I've got to meet Fred at the shop at eleven to help with a new shipment. He won't tell me what's in it, only that I shouldn't wear anything that Hermione likes."

At that, Ginny grabbed her brother in a hug. Harry stared at his feet. He probably should have bought new trainers at some point, this pair was starting to look almost as grubby as one of Dudley's hand-me-downs.

Ginny nudged him with her elbow. She'd relinquished Ron, who was looking at Harry with a blank face. Harry stuck his hand out and Ron took it to shake. From Hermione's expression, Harry knew that that was not quite the right response, and that he'd hear about it later, but Hermione had been giving him exasperated looks for as long as he'd known her. He'd survive.

Before long, Ron left. Neville and Luna filed in right after, and Harry had gotten swept up in a discussion of the pros and cons of a Grand Tour. "It's really old fashioned," Neville said, "but my Gran says I deserve it, no matter how my NEWTs shake out."

"I'd like to go observe the Crumple-Horned Snorkacks in their natural habitat. The horn that Daddy had never reformed correctly. The ink from the press must have mixed with the powder and blocked it." Luna said.

Hermione took a breath as if she were about to say something and then blown it out through her teeth. She took out a thick book from her ever present beaded bag and began to read it instead.

Harry stared out the window and listened to his friends talk, content.

But he felt all wrong-footed again once they'd arrived. Instead of Hagrid, Professor Grubby-Plank collected the first years. Even though that hasn't been a surprise, without Hagrid's calls of "Firs' years," it didn't quite feel like a new year. Hagrid had met Harry for one last supply run in Diagon Alley two weeks before, and had told Harry over a pint in the Leaky Cauldron that he thought he might do a sabbatical in France. Apparently Hagrid had heard from some guy in a pub that there was some monster called a Tarasque near Nice that was laying eggs, and Hagrid liked his odds about getting his hands on one. “I might swing by Beauxbatons and see how the grounds look, you know, mainly to give pointers,” he’d said, blushing furiously.

Inside Hogwarts, a fierce looking witch with an impressively scarred up neck greeted them in the entrance hall. “Eighth years, if you please,” she said.

Harry slowly relinquished Ginny’s hand and walked towards her.

Once the small group of eighth years—only four Gryffindors appeared to have signed up for more schooling—gathered around her, she deliberately made eye contact with all of them in turn. Something about her manner made Harry desperately scramble for whatever he could remember of Snape’s Occlumency’s lessons, but she skipped right over him.

“I’m Professor Altell, and I’ll be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year,” she said. “I’m sorry to inform you that you’ll have to miss the sorting. I’m going to show you to your rooms now, since none of the professors can be spared after the feast.”

In Harry’s excitement about being able to go back to Hogwarts, to get a chance to finish everything up properly, there’d been two sour notes that had almost ruined it all for him. One was that Ron wasn’t coming. Harry understood his need to be there for George, he did. But he wanted Ron there with him. And It was his fault that Ron wasn’t. The way that he saw it, if only he’d surrendered to Voldemort earlier, any number of people would still be alive, including Fred. 

The second was that there was no space for him in Gryffindor Tower. It hadn’t been built to accommodate more than seven years worth of students. In the finer details of the offer, McGonagall had explained all that and more, promising that students would still be able to spend time in their old common rooms, and that they’d make over an empty classroom into an ad hoc common room just for the eighth years, but Harry had deliberately not thought about it.

He dutifully trudged along after the new professor, noting that she led them up a staircase that only worked at night. Along the way, they passed the corridor on the third floor that had been blocked off to guard the Sorcerer’s Stone. Some kind of translucent barrier covered the entrance, but Harry could see rubble covering the floor and thick vines curving around the larger piles.

Finally, they reached their destination in a tucked away corner of the castle that Harry had never explored in depth before. Mainly because a number of professors had rooms in this hallway, the ones that didn’t chose to live near their offices, and Harry had always tried to avoid professors on his late night jaunts.

Professor Altell turned to face them. Her scars were shining in the flickering light, and it looked like she was wearing a large silver collar. “We’ve placed members of the same house and the same sex in rooms together,” she said, consulting a list. “Longbottom and Potter, your room is first.”

Neville went towards the indicated room, and Harry followed. On the inside, it was much larger than it should be, based on the spacing of the doors. The room had been decorated all over with red and gold and two large four-poster beds dominated the space. Harry went to the window. It’d had been spelled to have the same view as out the window in his old dorm room. The empty grounds spread out before him, huge swaths of grass ripped up and destroyed. The part of the Forbidden Forest that Hagrid had carried him through back in June was even worse. Whole trees had been overturned and their roots seemed to sway in the wind.

“I think this is my old bed,” Neville said, examining one of them. “See, it’s got that scorch mark from when Seamus tried to transfigure butterbeer into firewhiskey.”

Harry obligingly went over and looked. It did have that exact same burn mark that he remembered.

“This is probably my bed then,” he said, sitting down on it. It had the same familiar give, but it had been a while.

“Eighth years!” Professor Altell’s voice rang out, “Come on.”

Harry did that, and then followed her back down to the Great Hall in silence. Justin Finch-Fletchley walked in lockstep with him and kept clearing his throat meaningfully, but Harry kept his head down and managed to avoid discussion.

When they entered the Great Hall, everyone stopped talking. Dinner had already been laid out, and Harry could smell roast chicken and beef drippings and any number of his favorite foods. It looked unchanged from when Harry had first entered it, eight years ago. The four long house tables divided the space, and numerous candles floated in the air. The way it had looked during the battle felt like a bad dream, with bodies littering the floor and the enchantment on the ceiling broken.

Daphne Greengrass—Harry had a hard time believing that any Slytherins had been invited to come back, even with hard proof—pushed forward and went towards her house’s table, head held high. Their group dispersed, and at once everyone in the hall turned to their neighbors and started furiously whispering. The returning Gryffindors found a space near the staff table and loaded up their plates.

Harry had reached for everything that he’d liked best and then sat fork in hand, while Hermione toyed with her food across from him. Dessert wasn’t much better. There were fewer people at the table, fewer people at any of the tables. And every single one of them appeared to be staring right at him.

Once the prefects began to collect the students, Harry leapt up. Hermione appeared at his elbow and they made their way back to their new rooms.

“Mine is right next to yours,” Hermione said, breaking the silence once they’d gotten back. “And the common room is five doors down from mine.”

Harry nodded and put his hand on the door to his room, suddenly exhausted.

“It’s different than I thought it’d be, being back,” Hermione said.

“Maybe it’ll be normal again once classes start,” Harry replied. “Goodnight.”

———

It wasn’t. Some of the classes were all right. Professor McGonagall had explained that she was still in the process of recruiting a replacement for Transfiguration when they started, and then went onto the business at hand. Professor Flitwick had begun his explanation of what he expected from NEWTs students and then fell over in excitement when Hermione pulled her textbook out of her small beaded handbag. They’d had a very enjoyable class about Undetectable Extension Charms instead, and Harry’s pocket on his second best robe was now big enough to fit his broom in.

Herbology was apparently going to be at least partly devoted to setting the grounds to rights. “Some of the plants I unleashed are NEWTs level,” Professor Sprout said, arms around a big basket of earmuffs, “and some should be a good refresher. Today we’re going to dig up some Mandrakes.”

Harry had been absurdly grateful to the earmuffs by the end of the lesson. Hermione kept shooting him the kinds of looks that meant he must have looked a fright, and Harry did not want her to tell him yet again that it wasn’t his fault.

Potions had been another unpleasant surprise. Somehow the fact that Professor Slughorn thought he was a potions prodigy had completely slipped his mind until he was walking down to class. He didn’t know how he was expected to manage the whole year without help from Snape’s marked up textbook. Fortunately for Harry, the battle had chewed through Madame Pomfrey’s stock of various healing salves so thoroughly that they’d been conscripted into replenishing them for at least the first month. Most of the potions required were second or third level at best, thankfully, so Harry had time to try to come up with a scheme once they got back to NEWTs level work.

By the time Friday came, Harry had begun to seriously consider scheduling a meeting with McGonagall and telling her he was dropping out. He’d almost completely lost the ability to eat anything; the stares and the whispers were almost as bad as his fourth year, everywhere he looked he was reminded of all the people who’d died just so he could sulk through his classes, and Justin Finch-Fletchley was becoming increasingly desperate to talk to Harry and Harry was increasingly desperate to avoid that. Harry had become intimately familiar with all the depressing ways that Hogwarts had been destroyed by the battle, trying to find places Justin Finch-Fletchley wouldn't follow. 

But on Friday all he had was double Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Harry was curious about the new Professor Altell despite himself.

She sat at her desk shuffling through books when the class began to file in. Once everyone was seated, she stood.

“My name is Professor Altell,” she said. “Until last year, I worked for the Department of Mysteries, focusing on countercurses and training new members of our department. I cannot reveal anything further than that about my previous work, though I, of course, encountered any number of other forms of magic in my studies.”

“Last year,” she said, looking directly to the right of Harry’s eyes, “I was on the run and had the opportunity to apply some of my more theoretical skills. I assume this is why the Headmistress thinks I’m qualified to teach this class. But I believe that she is mistaken.”

Hermione gasped.

“If I understand correctly, every single person in this room has defended themselves from the Dark Arts with more skill and ability than I have ever exhibited.”

The room was completely silent. Nobody even dared to shift in their seats.

“Longbottom, for example, drew Gryffindor’s sword and lopped off the head of Voldemort’s snake after cleverly utilizing his knowledge of herbology to defend the castle. A form of defense that is woefully understudied; unfortunately, we will not have the time to rectify that error this year.”

Neville met her gaze as she said that. A younger Neville would have ducked away, and Harry was ashamed to realize that he was almost startled that he didn’t.

“What I do know,” Professor Altell continued, “and what will be useful on your upcoming exam, is the theory behind both defending against and performing the dark arts. This means that there will not be as much wandwork as you might have hoped. But it also means that I don’t think it’s necessary to compel your attendance on days that you feel you already understand the material. I have,” she prodded a pile of paper on her desk with her wand and similarly sized sheaths appeared in front of all the students, “provided you all with a thorough syllabus. I only ask that you all attend during the first and last month of my classes.”

She smiled and the white of her teeth matched the white of her scars. “Shall we start then?”

The class nodded, and she began to lead the class in a discussion of how to identify curses on objects and the best ways to despell them. By the end, Harry had wished he’d had this kind of material previously. It would have been enormously useful last year.

“She seems like one of our better Defense professors,” Hermione said afterwards on the way to the library. Without Ron there to counterbalance her, Hermione had started essentially living there, emerging only for classes, meals, and to sleep. And she wasn’t doing a lot of either of the latter two. Like Harry, she appeared to have lost her appetite for Hogwarts’s food—something he would have thought impossible last year when faced with another meal of undercooked acorns and burnt fish. And, like Harry, she always had bags under her eyes, and she had stopped bothering to make her hair less bushy.

“I do wish I’d gotten a better look at that charm she performed to duplicate those papers. It’s really tricky, and I don’t think we’re getting it in Charms until the spring. It would save me loads of work,” Hermione said, efficiently pulling out a textbook, a quill, and at least ten different scrolls from her handbag. “Can you check if Pince is around?”

Harry backtracked to the end of the row they were in and made out Madame Pince sitting at the main desk. “She’s not, why?”

Hermione grinned and dug around in her bag some more. It clanked alarmingly. She brought out something wrapped in a napkin that she quickly revealed to be four sandwiches. “Do you want one?”

In all of the years that Harry had been at Hogwarts, he didn’t think he’d ever seen Hermione eating in the library. In fact, he was hard pressed to remember Hermione eating while reading at all, probably too concerned for the books to dare. He took one and bit into it, more out of politeness than anything. But as soon as he did, he realized that he was ravenously hungry. He made quick work of it. Hermione, busy with her own food, gestured to another, and he fell upon it too.

“Thanks,” Harry said.

“It was nothing,” Hermione said. “Now that you’re done, I have a list of books I need for my Arithmancy essay, would you mind getting them for me?”

Harry didn’t mind, and so he set to it. He returned with a massive stack of thick, dusty tomes tall enough to almost obscure his vision. They spent the rest of the evening in companionable silence working on the mountain of homework they’d already been assigned.

———

The next Tuesday, Hermione got two letters by owl post. One was delivered by a very excited Pigwidgeon and the other by a regal looking barn owl. Harry had been regretting his choice to try to eat a piece of buttered toast, and relieved, he fed his slice to Pigwidgeon instead.

Hermione opened the letter from Ron first. “He says hi,” she said to Harry, scanning the first page, “and that the shop is doing quite well and George still won’t warn him what’s in any of the shipments and—“ she flushed and shoved the letter back in the envelope.

“I should read the other letter first,” she said, with a huge smile on her face. 

"Oh, it’s from Professor McGonagall. I asked to set a meeting with her last Friday. She apologizes for the late notice but says that she can meet us both at half past noon today. That’s really going to cut in close with Arthimancy.”

She gave Harry the note and shoved Ron’s letter in her bag. It was exactly as Hermione said. He idly contemplated writing Ron a letter for Pig to take back, but he didn't know what he'd say. Telling him how great Hogwarts was would not only be a lie, but might make him feel bad. Telling him how awful Hogwarts was without him would definitely make Ron feel bad.

———

Shortly before their planned meeting, Harry and Hermione set off. They made it most of the way to McGonagall's old office before Hermione abruptly stopped in the middle of the hallway and set off at a jog towards the Headmaster's office.

They were both winded and late by the time they got to the gargoyle at the bottom of the stairs. Harry managed the password--tabby--and pushed himself up. The office looked almost exactly the same as when Dumbledore was headmaster. The same mysterious instruments were collecting their secret measurements, the portraits of headmasters and headmistresses past turned to look at Harry as he entered. But Fawkes was no longer sitting on his customary perch, and Professor McGonagall was frowning at him from behind the desk. 

"Sorry, Professor," Hermione gasped, pressing her side. "We forgot about your new office."

"Sit down," Professor McGonagall said. "This shouldn't take long."

Harry and Hermione sat. 

"In your note, Miss Granger, you wanted to know if it would be possible for the eighth year students to leave Hogwarts during the weekends, not just Hogsmeade weekends. Is that so?"

That was news to Harry. Hermione had somehow forgotten to mention what the meeting was about. He'd thought it might have something to do with the common room situation. Whatever had been done to make it large enough for all the eight years was wearing off, and Fitch was not being helpful. 

"Yes," Hermione said, "But I also wanted to ask if we could leave on Fridays too."

"Not all of them, I hope."

"No," Hermione replied, sitting up very straight in her chair. 

"I don't see why not," Professor McGonagall said, "as long as you don't neglect your studies. None of you are traditional students and you two especially can handle the responsibility. Have you thought about how you'd get there?"

Harry was confused by the question. Couldn't they just walk out the front gates towards Hogsmeade?

"London's too far to Apparate to, so I thought we could take a Floo, but I wanted to know if you'd allow it before seeking one out."

Understanding dawned, Hermione was trying to arrange to be able to visit Ron during the term. It was sweet, he thought, how dedicated she was to Ron, though he wasn't quite sure what he'd do with himself around Hogwarts for three days without either of his best friends. Ginny was significantly more busy than him, and most of her friends just stared awkwardly at him or thanked him for his service, if he tagged along with her despite that.

"You are free to use mine. It's the only one in the castle hooked up to the Floo system. Though I believe The Three Broomsticks offers use of their fireplace for a quite reasonable fee, if you'd prefer."

"Thank you, Professor," Hermione said, getting to her feet. "I really have to go to Arithmancy now."

McGonagall waved her off, and Harry began to follow her. 

"Potter, a word," McGonagall said right as he'd stood up. 

"Yes," he said, awkwardly sitting down again.

"Were you aware that Professor Snape left you something in his will?"

"No," Harry said, shocked. He'd thought Snape's last bequest to him had been Snape's memories. For a second, he had the hope that Snape would pass onto him something of his mother's, possibly something from her childhood. Harry didn't have a single thing from her other than her eyes. 

"Here," McGonagall said, "I've already told the Ministry what I think about holding on to it for so long, but they might listen to you better."

She held up a copy of _Advanced Potion-Making_. Harry took it and flipped to a random page. It was unmarked. Was this some kind of weird joke? He hadn't thought Snape had much of a sense of humor. He then turned to the inside cover and saw, in familiar handwriting _Property of the Half-Blood Prince_ , as expected. But under it was a new line in that same hand: _help for the worthy_.

What was that supposed to mean? Snape had always made it perfectly clear that he didn't think Harry was fit to clean out a cauldron, let alone put something in it. 

"There's some kind of enchantment on it," Professor McGonagall continued, "but it's nothing harmful. It appears to make the pages impervious to ink. The Ministry," she sniffed in disapproval, "took weeks to figure out what was the work of hours for Professors Flitwick, Altell, and myself."

Unsure of what to say, Harry thanked her and took his leave, puzzling over Snape's last gift. At least he now had a potential solution to his problem with Slughorn, if only he could figure out how to make himself worthy in Snape's eyes.

———

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Hermione said much later over an illicit dinner of chicken thighs in a dusty corner of the library. Harry had just shown her the textbook and explained the little he knew.

"What's obvious?" Harry asked. He knew that she wanted him to ask, and though he'd prefer not to do that, he also knew it was the price of Hermione's help.

"What you have to do to the book to get the annotations back," she said. "Obviously you have to prove yourself in potions. Most likely by brewing each potion to Snape's standards."

"How is the book going to figure out that I can do that?"

Hermione looked marginally less smug. "Snape was a powerful wizard, I'm sure he could have found a way. Maybe by pouring a little of each potion on the cover."

"A way that none of the other professors could detect? I've never even heard of a spell like that."

Hermione rustled her parchment. "Well, I don't know, Harry. What I think is more important than convincing Slughorn you're the best brewer since Nicolas Flamel is deciding which Defense class in October we should skip. I was thinking the second Tuesday, when she covers charms to avoid detection. We already used all of those spells and more last year. But what if there's something I missed?"

He shouldn't have been taken aback that Hermione had planned for him to go along with her, she did make sure he was in the meeting, but he had really thought that she had wanted to see Ron by herself. He felt impossibly fond of her. 

"You kept us all alive last year with those spells, right? I don't think there's anything you missed. Let's do that weekend then."

Hermione beamed and applied herself to writing a letter to inform Ron of the news.

———

On the designated weekend, Hermione emerged from her room promptly at half past one. She'd put on a smart blue jumper and had slicked her hair down almost as severely as for the ball back in fourth year. Something about her face also looked different and Harry was surprised to realize that she was wearing makeup. Lots of it.

Hermione frowned, her hand going to her hair. "Oh no, it's too much, isn't it? I knew it was too much." She went back into her shared room with Lavender and came out a few minutes later with her face scrubbed and her hair approaching its normal bushy volume. 

They made their way to the Headmistress's office, Hermione only with her small beaded bag, and Harry with a backpack he'd inherited from Dudley, back when he'd gone to a Muggle school, that he'd shoved into his trunk at some point and never taken out before now. Hermione was muttering to herself about all of the essays that she planned to write at some point over the weekend and checking if she had all of the books she'd need. Harry was starting to worry again that he'd be a third wheel.

His dread built as they made their way through the castle and into McGonagall's study. But before he could make his excuses and back out, Hermione had grabbed some Floo powder and gone through to Ron and George's flat over the shop. With no other choice but to follow, Harry did, bracing himself for the unpleasant squeezing feeling that all forms of magical transport seemed to induce.

When he stepped out of the fireplace, Ron and Hermione were already swaying with their arms around each other, and Harry almost stepped back into the fire to go back to Hogwarts.

"Harry!" Ron exclaimed, cutting off that avenue of escape. Harry was a Gryffindor, he should be made of stronger stuff than this.

Hermione stepped back from Ron and before Harry knew it, Ron had swept him up in a massive hug. "I'd missed you."

Harry felt almost too choked up to say that he had missed Ron too, but he eventually got the words out. Hermione also flung her arms around them both. They stood there for at least a minute before separating and beaming at each other.

A massive bang went off, and the room suddenly smelled incredibly strongly of wet cat. "What, no touching reunion for me?" George said from a corner.

Ron rolled his eyes. Hermione assured him that she was happy to see him too. Harry asked him how the shop was doing.

"As my angel investor, I want to personally assure you that your money hasn't gone to waste. Let me show you around."

Harry assumed this was a transparent ploy to allow Ron and Hermione some time to themselves, but he no longer felt like they wouldn't want him around at all this weekend. But maybe they didn't want him there right that second.

He let George lead him into a backroom and then lecture at him about all of the many ingredients that went into a new and improved Skiving Snackbox. George talked incessantly, with barely any breaks for air. At first, Harry was slightly put off, there were questions he wanted to ask. But then he realized that George was trying to talk for two people, without any of the pauses that he used to leave for Fred to jump in.

"That diversion I set off earlier, it's not quite ready and I haven't come up with a name—sadly Ron, among his many faults, is not good at naming things—but it's supposed to make Fitch think Miss Norris is around the corner and needs a bath. A niche product, but a niche product I can sell," George explained. His face looked drawn, and in the sickly light of four burbling, glowing cauldrons, he seemed almost older than Mr Weasley. But as he told Harry about each new product, a trace of his old manner would resurface.

After a very informative hour, George was called down to deal with some situation on the shop floor, but not before showing Harry into his small office. Harry thought about starting his Transfiguration essay, but instead he pulled out _Advanced Potion-Making_ and turned it over in his hands. He was still no closer to figuring out its puzzle. Based on Hermione's theory, he'd very carefully brewed a “Draught of Living Death," since he could remember Snape's modifications to that potion the most clearly. With Hermione watching, Harry had poured a small aliquot over a corner of the book, but the pages had stubbornly remained blank. Ever since then, Hermione had gotten huffily annoyed if he took the book out, claiming that he'd be better off actually studying and applying himself in Potions if he wanted to do well, rather than trying to rely on the book.

But next week, they'd be done brewing simple potions and be back to proper NEWTs work, and the thought of being unmasked made Harry try increasingly strange things. He'd tried writing in it himself, casting Levicorpus at it, and working through a list of incantations for unmasking secret messages he'd found in a book Hermione was reading for pleasure. None of them had any effect.

At a loss, Harry started to read the introduction, but found it almost too dull to be borne. Luckily, Ron interrupted him once Harry had made it to page six.

"Are you hungry?" Ron asked. "There's dinner."

"Yes," Harry said, his stomach growling loudly.

"George is going to meet up with Lee Jordan, so it's just us three tonight," Ron said, leading Harry back to a small table with four mismatched chairs. Hermione was sitting in one of them scribbling in a scroll. Her hair was easily three times larger than the last time Harry had seen her; it rivaled her hair from first year in volume.

"Have you started on your essay for Charms?" she asked.

"No," Harry said.

"It's tricky," she said, Hermione's way of warning him that putting it off to the last second would be a mistake.

"I made stew," Ron called from the kitchen. "And bread. Mum always says that the best way to impress guests is to serve them home baked bread."

It smelled wonderful. And it wasn't just the fact that Harry was starving, he'd want to taste whatever smelled like that even if he was completely stuffed.

Ron floated three large bowls out in front of him, stew almost sloshing over the sides. Hermione jumped up and came back with spoons, a loaf of crusty bread, and a crock of butter. They all dug in and somehow it tasted even better than it smelled. They didn't talk at all through the first bowl, a testament to Ron's skills.

"My mum's been showing me how to do some more stuff around the house," Ron said, ladling a second helping for Harry into his bowl. "I'm still rubbish at most cleaning spells, but I'm getting better at cooking."

"How are things at Hogwarts?" Ron said, his face averted. "Hermione tells me lots, but you know how she is."

Harry felt intensely guilty; he hadn't been much of a pen pal since he'd gone back. Most of his letters were short, stuck to complaining about the workload, written under duress with Hermione standing over him. He didn't want to talk about how the destruction around Hogwarts made him feel, or how he couldn't eat in the Great Hall without thinking about all of the dead bodies lined up on the floor and on the tables, or how everyone's gratitude that he did it, that he finally truly killed Voldemort, made him want to run away and live by himself in the woods.

He opened his mouth and instead of any number of excuses, he asked, "Did I tell you that Snape left me his old potion book?"

"No," Ron said.

And then Harry explained all about it, while Hermione pressed her quill more and more forcefully against her parchment until the tip snapped.

Once Harry was done, Ron sat and thought for a moment. "Well, it's obvious, isn't it?"

"It isn't," Hermione snapped.

"Yeah, it is," Ron said and turned to Harry. "You've still got the Elder Wand on you, right?"

Harry nodded. He half thought about placing it back in Dumbledore's tomb, but it didn't seem like the most secure location. And besides, Harry wasn't sure he could handle seeing Dumbledore's body again.

"You need to tap the book with it."

"Why?" Hermione demanded.

"Voldemort murdered Harry's mother and Snape loved her. So the most deserving person, in Snape's view, is someone who could defeat him."

Feeling vaguely silly, Harry pulled out the Elder Wand and the textbook. He tapped it forcefully and felt a small frisson of something travel up his arm. Eagerly, he opened the book, but the pages were still unmarked.

"I think you're onto something," Harry said. "But there's something more..."

Suddenly, he had it. Again, he tapped the book, but this time he said, "Please." The word that Snape could never imagine the son of James Potter ever uttering.

The book opened to the first page, and Snape's handwriting began to fill the margins once again. Hermione had completely forgotten her irritation and had dropped her quill, watching as each page was turned and written upon in fascination.

"I’d been beginning to worry," Ron said, "that me and Harry wouldn't be able to manage Auror training without Hermione there to help us study. But this makes me feel like we can handle it."

Harry laughed and laughed, until both of them looked at him in confusion. He'd been afraid that Ron had no longer planned to become an Auror with him. That he’d somehow lose Ron as a friend while Ron dealt with real adult problems and Harry lost sleep over homework.

But in that moment, he knew that all would be well.


End file.
